Pack Tales: Secret Santa
by LadyLetters
Summary: Jacob is impossible to buy for so when Leah picks his name for the pack's Secret Santa she doesn't know what to get, let alone how she is going to keep it secret from the pack mind until Christmas day. Yet her blossoming friendship with a local girl, Maggie, provides an unexpected opportunity to cheer up Jacob and reunite the fracturing wolf pack. M for lemons. 5 chapters. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Hi guys, I've always been fascinated by Leah and this little story is my first attempt at giving her a life of her own. I like to think that it explores individuality and how hard it is to find your own when you are part of something larger and all encompassing like a supernatural wolf pack!**

 **Rated M for lemons and a little bit of bad language. As always I do not own these characters, I just borrowed them.**

 **LadyLetters**

* * *

"No, Leah, try again," Sam was a patient teacher but I was clearly starting to test him. "It's like a soap bubble," he made an illustrative arc with his hands, "invisible but strong." I tried again, mentally blowing a bubble in my brain and moulding it to shield the innermost workings. For a moment I felt like it was working, the chatter of the others fading away into blessed silence. _Bang!_ The fragile bubble burst as the loud noise flipped me into defensive mode, and instinct sought the connection and safety of the pack mind.

"Sorry," shouted Emily from the kitchen. She popped a sheepish head around the living room door, waving a saucepan. I glared at her before I could stop myself and she beat a hasty retreat. The shock of the sound had obliterated Sam's mental barriers too, giving me a bittersweet glimpse of his thoughts. As always I was in his mind. The only thing worse than the fact that he dumped me for my cousin is the fact that I am constantly reminded how bad he feels about the whole thing. The love he had for me, the trembling excitement of the night we lost our virginity together and the pure love that he feels for Emily keep me in constant agony. It would be so much easier if he was some sort of lothario that seduced me and dumped me. At least that way I could hate him and start the healing process. Sadly, there is no way that I could ever hate Sam.

"No problem sweetie," said Sam evenly to Emily's retreating form, recovering his composure and closing his mind off. Jacob might be the Alpha now but Sam is still the most responsible of our number. It was Sam who worked out how to put mental barriers in place to gain some privacy from the pack mind. Embry's intense humiliation at getting an erection when that school teacher brushed against him, Paul nailing some woman on a trip to Seattle, Jacob sniffing those postcards from Bella's extended honeymoon to check that she was still human and all of the thoughts and regrets that flooded him when he realised that she was; every moment of pack life was felt to some extent by everybody else. It's hard to explain, it's like the hum of telephone cables, or the murmur in a busy restaurant when you only hear the loudest laughter or the angriest words. Pack brain is black and white with the most emotional moments picked out in startling colour.

"How's Beth?" asked Sam. I knew that he was changing the subject deliberately, giving me some space to gather myself.

"Fine," I replied, a smile surfacing unexpectedly, "still desperate to join the wolf pack."

"Nobody has changed since the Cullens left," pointed out Sam, trying to allay my worst fears, that my fifteen year old sister would morph into a monster like me.

"But we've not changed back again either," I countered. He nodded in agreement. Neither Sam, Jacob nor the elders could explain why, when the threat had ostensibly been removed, that we had not returned to our usual forms. I know that it is outside my control but I would literally do anything to keep my little sister from this life. Sam smiled gently and I knew that he was sharing my peak in emotion, understanding what I was thinking without me having to put the thoughts into words.

The emotion spiked again, this time accompanied by a lump in my throat. I mean, it's the weirdest thing, as much as I want to be out of this screwed up little cult I would miss the communal brain. When we're out running in the full moon, the scent of the outdoors in my nose, the patter of pack feet beside me howling for the sheer joy of being alive it's quite simply amazing, it multiplies every sense and feeling by the number of people in the pack. Truly a double edged sword. Yet, without the cold ones living on our doorstep we were starting to fracture. Paul wants to move away, I want a life where I'm not Sam's cast off and the awkward female and Embry wants to lose his virginity without the rest of us putting pressure on him. The pack is holding together by a thread and I'm not sure that either Sam or Jacob knows what do about it.

"Emily, you're cooking!" Jacob's voice drifted in from the kitchen.

"You always seem to know when I'm cooking," exclaimed Emily, "lucky I always make extra."

"You're a good woman," said Jacob flirtatiously. He swaggered into the living room, greeting both of us with a brief hello before sinking into Sam's favourite armchair. It's December and he's wearing jeans and a checked shirt. Given our internal heat the clothes are a concession to appearing normal rather than a requirement.

"How's it going?" he asked, referring to the brain training.

"Fine," replied Sam, non-committally.

"Good," I said with a fake but enthusiastic smile.

"It's hard," said Jacob, with a sympathetic grimace, "you think that you're holding it together then something happens and it's like a dam breaking, worse then before." I smiled again and this time it was genuine. I knew exactly what he was talking about, we all suffered when that bitch Bella was breaking his heart bit by bit. "It's Christmas Eve tomorrow," he said, changing the subject, "I thought we could run."

"Great," replied Sam. "Paul's back from Seattle tomorrow so we'll all be here."

"I can't." Jacob fixed me with his gaze, demanding an explanation. "We're closing the shop early," I explained, hating myself a little bit for feeling the need to elaborate, "to go for something to eat then on to a house party."

"We'll do it later then." He turned his attention back to Sam, conversation closed as far as he was concerned.

"No can do," I said, firmly. "I'm staying at Maggie's place."

"Maggie," Jacob literally groaned, sinking deeper into Sam's chair, "if you can catch her in the shower again that would make my Christmas."

"The first time was an accident," I spluttered, flushing red at the memory of unintentionally plastering a naked image of my only real non reservation friend to the pack mind. "I was trying to keep her to myself."

"No wonder," said Jacob, his eyes gleaming, "she's a hot bit of ass. And you," he looked at me, accusation in his eyes, "you called her Margaret for months to try to make her sound like and old lady and put us off the scent."

"Is it so wrong that I want a friend just for myself?" I snapped. "Just this once?"

"No, no," said Jacob, spreading his hands wide in an attempt to defuse the situation, "I just thought that you might bring her here to meet your guys."

"Never."

"Never?"

"Never. There's no way I'm letting you bunch of horn dogs anywhere near her when she's the one person in this county that thinks I'm normal." I thought about it for a moment. "Okay, well normal-ish."

His eyes looked dangerous for a moment and I wondered whether he would use his Alpha command to make me come back for tomorrow's run. The pull of the pack mind was such that part of me did wish me that he would order me to stay. He might have, in the early days, but the influence of Sam seemed to have steadied him and he sighed, pushing his hand through his short black hair.

"We'll miss you," he said with a sigh.

"I know."

"So," he said, addressing both Sam and myself, "have you guys got your Secret Santa gifts yet?"

"Yes," said Sam, with a trace of smugness that made me feel a fraction less charitable towards him.

"No," I said, carefully trying to hide the fact that I had picked Jacob's name from the hat. It was an exercise set by Sam, a challenge for us all to buy a Christmas gift for another pack member with a maximum value of $10. This in itself isn't a problem, although in truth I was struggling to think of something for Jacob, the trick was in managing to keep it secret until Christmas day.

"Well, you don't have much time left," he said, smirking in a way that let us both know that he had already bought his present.

* * *

"You look great!" said Maggie.

"Don't sound so surprised!" I said, faux sarcastically.

"I'm not," she said, "I've just never seen you in heels before. You're a freaking amazon!" It was partially true, I was only a little shy of six feet tall in my three inch heels. Maggie was a full head shorter than me.

"It was you that helped me pick them. The jeans too." I gestured at the skinny jeans I was wearing with my new heels. I was initially reluctant to get out of my trusty baggy jeans and converse but Maggie took me on a shopping trip to Seattle and encouraged me to buy a load of clothes that I would never normally look at. She was also behind my new cropped hairdo.

"Turn around," she demanded, "let me check out your ass." Dutifully I whirled around, tensing slightly when her warm hand fondled the newly discovered curves under the denim. "Your ass is great," she sighed, "I'm so jealous." There was a slight undertone to her voice that I didn't recognise and for a moment I wondered whether her caress had gone on longer than strictly necessary. My stomach flipped, an unexpected lurch that made me grab my bottle of beer and take a swig to hide my reaction.

One of the downsides of being part of the pack is a prevalence of testosterone. I mean, I'm straight. Sam, to state the obvious, is a man. I dated other guys before I hooked up with him. Yet sometimes, just sometimes, I think that I'm starting to see other girls in the same way that the guys do. The feminine smells that my heightened sense of smell picks up, the curves and planes that make up the female form, suddenly I see, hear and smell every little thing. Mostly when I'm around Maggie. She's not an obvious beauty but there's something about her that draws me to her. We've been training for the Seattle marathon together. Just to be clear, I could easily run a marathon, even in human form, but I can't tell her that. So three times a week, on days when we are either at community college or working shifts at the store we go running. She knows that I am fitter than her so I drive her hard, pushing her further and faster every run. She just laps it up, pushing herself until her legs burn and her breath comes in great rasping gulps but never complaining. It's weird to see Maggie looking at the abs that I hate for being so manly in awe and telling me that I should be on the cover of a women's fitness magazine. All of the things that I hate about myself are things that she covets and her admiration makes me see myself in a different light, a light where I am a lithe and sensual rather than flat chested and angular, just one of the La Push boys.

"You look great too," I tell her. Her curvy form is encased in tight dark skinny jeans with leather knee boots over the top. She has strawberry blonde hair that falls in soft waves down her back and more freckles than I have ever seen on a human being. She always tells me that when I smile it's special because I do it so little but Maggie seems to have a never ending supply, an exuberance so close to the surface of her skin that she glows.

"My muffin top is nearly gone!" she exclaimed, lifting her slinky vest to show me her newly slimmed belly and waistline. She keeps her top up for a moment, admiring her midriff in the mirror of the cramped dusty staffroom above the shop. I can't tear my eyes away from the pale expanse of skin. "Come on," she said, letting the vest drop back into place and ending the moment. "Let's go party." She downed the rest of her jack and coke and slammed it onto the formica table before grabbing my hand and dragging me downstairs, out of the shop and into the cold night air.


	2. Chapter 2

"Out of the way!" Maggie's hand grabbed mine roughly, yanking me back just as a bearded man ran across my path and into the bathroom, two hands over his mouth barely keeping the vomit at bay. Golden droplets spurted through his fingers and as he sank to his knees in front of the white porcelain Maggie pulled the door shut behind him. "Shit, that is one thing that I do not want to be seeing."

"This party is wild!" My eyes must have been wide open because, honestly, we don't have parties like this on the reservation. I mean, we have parties, of course we do. But everybody knows everybody else so it's always in the back of your mind that somebody could see you and if they do your parents are sure to know what you've been up to the very next day. Maggie's friend James, and by the way, I use the word friend loosely as she doesn't even know his second name, doesn't even know half the people who are here tonight. There was a couple having sex on his parents bed and when Maggie and I wandered in, trying to find a fabled second bathroom, there appeared to be another couple writhing on the floor too. One of the other bedrooms has disappeared in a cloud of smoke as a number of joints are passed around. The neighbours have already threatened to call the cops because of a game of truth and dare that got out of hand and ended up with a drunk naked bloke with only a sock covering his modesty knock on their door, sprig of mistletoe in hand. Despite this, the party is raging on.

"Definitely wild," agreed Maggie, her eyes gleaming a little unnaturally from the alcohol. Her cheeks were flushed, the high colour a contrast to her pale skin and her hand is hot as she grabs mine in hers and drags me into the kitchen and towards the keg. We wait for some skinny kid doing a keg stand to get his feet back on the ground then push our way through the crowd to the front of the queue where I hold the cups and she fills them. Just as the second cup is almost full a shockwave blasts through the house. At least, with my superhuman hearing it sounds like a shockwave. I jump a little, sloshing some beer over the top of the cups and making Maggie giggle, before the second shockwave brings me to the realisation that it's bass. Really loud bass. The iPod squeaking out lame rock tunes has suddenly been replaced by a proper sound system blasting out the latest electronica.

"That's a proper tune," said Maggie, handing the nozzle to the next person waiting for a refill. "Let's dance!"

I'm usually a bit too self conscious to dance but the living room is extremely dimly lit with bodies already writhing in time to the beat. The arrival of the big amp and a guy with some decks has been greeted with excitement and there is a tangible buzz in the room, a feeling that you can almost reach out and touch. The DJ seems to have brought an entourage with him and suddenly the party has doubled in size, the very fabric of the house throbbing to the baseline and bodies moving within with all the regularity of a pumping heart. Nearby I notice a girl with only a bra on and jeans dancing between two guys. In a corner I'm sure that I can see two guys sniffing something off the top of an ancient CRT television set. The party is really getting out of hand and despite the beer I can feel myself tensing, the worry lines that have punctuated the last couple of years of my life broadcasting my sudden discomfort.

A hand touches my cheek, bringing my attention back to the smiling Maggie. _Relax,_ she mouths. I know what she means, it's the same thing that she always tells me; to stop worrying about what other people are doing and concentrate on myself. I smile tightly at her, trying to bring myself back to the moment, to let me enjoy it. _Just dance,_ she mouths. She closes her eyes and starts swaying to the music, punching her hands in the air as the bassline of the next big chorus kicks in. I stand still for a moment, blowing that imaginary bubble in my head and encasing myself in a psychic shield. This time I imagine the bubble bigger. I imagine it taking in all of my doubts and insecurities and worries too. I'm not sure whether it has worked but when I open my eyes I feel myself there, in the present and at the party. I start to sway experimentally, feeling the bass as it pulses and throbs, throwing my hands in my air and finding, miraculously, that it lifts my spirits. It's as if I have pushed the top off a bottle of champagne and the bubbles are rising uncontrollably within me, an effervescence that makes my body move, my lips curve into a smile and my mouth scream out the chorus at the top of my voice.

I feel a hand on my hip. It's a guy that I recognise from community college, although I don't know his name. He is smiling, and with no hope of chatting over the music he moves his arms in a cute little train motion, gesturing for me to dance with him. I glance at Maggie, noting that his friend has already accosted her and nod. I'm almost as tall as him in my heels but he's buff and he can really move. His small friend is clearly not a dancer but he's making Maggie smile with his crazy ass moves and impressions. I turn my attention back to the guy. He's cute, dark eyes and a great smile on top of that muscular body. He brushes against me, accidentally, then again, accidentally. Who the hell am I kidding, he's finding every excuse to touch me and I'm loving it! I run a hand deliberately down his torso, feeling the washboard abs underneath it. He looks me in the eye and smiles again, no way that he can mistake that move for an accidental touch. The music changes, morphing from an EDM track into an old school hip hop tune and the crowd shrieks, going wild. He takes his chance and pulls me closer, grinding to the slower beat. I let him pull me towards him, his hands on my waist.

Suddenly my body tenses, involuntarily. A flashback. A boy, cute. A kiss, sweet. The ribbing that I got from the guys. The collective feeling of shock, jealousy and disgust that I felt from the pack mind.

"Are you OK?" The buff guy is shouting yet his voice is still barely audible over the music.

"Yes," I say, nodding my head. he looks at me intently, his face still creased in concern. This time it's going to be different, I tell myself. This time I have my mental defences. "Yes," I say again, and this time I smile and I know by his reaction that it is genuine. His hands are still on my waist and I take a step towards him. His legs scissors between mine and then we are dirty dancing, legs bent, his hard thigh rubbing between my legs as we bump and grind. I've seen a buff guy before, hell I live in La Push, I'm pretty much immune to naked hot guys but this is different. There's a look in his eyes that I've not seen for so long; a look of desire. It makes me feel funny inside, I mean, I'm so used to the guys in the pack looking at me like I'm their sister or just another guy rather than a woman, a real woman with needs and desires. A hand snakes down to my bottom and I close my eyes, pushing the hands to the ceiling in time to the music, enjoying his hands upon me. When I open them he is gazing at me intently and as the song finishes and the EDM beat blends seamlessly into a new faster rhythm he dips his head towards mine. His lips are full and lush and I can't stop staring as they come closer. He is so close that I can feel his breath on me as I close my eyes and lean towards the kiss.


	3. Chapter 3

The music stops abruptly, halting without preamble mid track. The crowd pauses mid dance, a comedic attempt at musical statues. Before anybody can say a word heavy footsteps run from the kitchen and into the living room cum dancefloor. A shrill male voice follows.

"Cops! Out the front!" The effect on the crowd is instantaneous, bodies running in every direction. Cute college guy flashes a brief apologetic smile and runs towards the French doors with his friend. I look at Maggie for a moment, not quite sure what to do given that we're both twenty one. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?

"Run!" she shrieks, setting off towards the French doors. The smell of weed is lingering in the air and there is a visible residue of white powder on top of the huge old television set. I decide that, on balance, she's probably right and follow her, running as best I can in the huge heels. We follow the crowd through the gate in the back hedge at the bottom of the garden and spill out onto a dark street with big sprawling houses built in a cookie cutter style nestled into wooded cut outs. I looked left, then right, there was literally nowhere to hide in this suburban sprawl. I tuned into my wolf senses for a moment and spotted a flattened patch of long grass a few houses down. I pulled Maggie towards it and she followed me, never questioning my judgement. As we get closer I see little bits of dog fur caught on the tree branches and detect a faint smell of human and dog. As I push a bush to one side I am rewarded by the sight of a narrow but passable path between the thick foliage, clearly used by local dog walkers to get to the park that I know is a few blocks behind us.

"How did you know this was here?" asked Maggie, following me down the thick path.

"I didn't!"

"You didn't?" She bursts into a fit of giggles, the sound incongruous in the cold December air. Pausing for a moment in the virtual darkness I realise how absurd we must look, teetering down the cut through in high heels and tight jeans and I laugh as well, a sound so loud and rare that it surprises even me. We are still laughing as we emerge from the path and onto another cookie cutter street. This time there is a crossroads a few houses away and we start to make our way towards the park and the town centre that lies beyond it.

"I'm so cold," said Maggie, as our pace slows. Plumes of hot breath rise from her mouth like steam and although I am not cold I suddenly realise that it is December and a little under freezing.

"Me too," I lie. "Come on, if we get downtown a few blocks we should be able to catch a taxi back to your apartment."

"I've got a better idea," she said, grinning like a madman even though her teeth were chattering and her hands wrapped around her torso. "I know a place."

"A place?"

"Yeah, a place."

"What kind of place?"

"The kind of place where we can have a drink, get warm then catch a cab home from the door."

* * *

The Painted Pony was not the kind of place that I had ever been before. Maggie knew somebody on the door and we got ushered past the small queue and into the club. The music was European and the dancefloor packed. A bar takes up the whole back wall and the crowd is at least four deep. There are a few tables in what appears to be a VIP area. The dancefloor is massive and four topless men with impossibly smooth torsos and diamonte encrusted thongs were dancing in giant gilded birdcages above our heads. Two women done up like Las Vegas showgirls danced on a small stage, their regal head dresses catching the light from the disco ball. As we got closer I sniffed the air, surreptitiously, slightly confused by their smell. The meaty smell of sweaty man was at odds with the beautiful female body but as I really looked I spotted the tell tale five o'clock shadow on one of the women and realised with a thrill that they were both men.

"Those guys are better looking than me," I mutter to myself.

"Me too," shouts Maggie over the music. She must have read my lips. "Shots?"

* * *

"Leah!" cried my new best friend Lance. "Your dancing is a-maz-ing!"

"Thanks Lance. You on the other hand," I look deliberately up and down his well dressed form, "dance like a gay robot!"

"I love it!" He cries. "Did you hear that?" His friend Tim who is dancing with Maggie looks over. "This bitch says I dance like a gay robot!"

"She is so right!" He squeals in reply and Lance breaks into a fresh robot dance, his body a flailing mix of angles, elbows and knees and flat palms. The dancefloor suddenly parts, thronging round him like kids around a playground fight, clapping and whooping. He takes a bow then Tim jumps in, doing an impromptu breakdance that looks like it should hurt as he spins a full three sixty degree turn on his head, no arms, as his finale. He jumps out of the circle and suddenly I find myself in the centre, thrust there by Maggie and Lance. I pause for a split second, a deer in headlights. I know the expectation is to dance but my mind is blank, and weight of expectation from the crowd around me crushing any inspiration that I might have had. I catch Maggie's eye in terror and she mouths the same thing that she did earlier. _Just Dance._

I take a deep breath and start doing the running man, which is literally the only thing that I can think to do at that time. The crowd laughs and cheers and instead of feeling like an outsider looking in I am part of it, in on the joke for once. As the chorus of the song kicks in I feel more confident and even grab my ankle in my hand and finish off with a completely OTT funky chicken before making way for Maggie to jump in. Lance has whipped off his belt and passed the buckle end to Tim and Maggie is trying to limbo underneath, drink still in hand. The crowd cheers as the sticky cocktail splashes over her neck and chest. She rises to her feet and Lance immediately dips his head into her dripping cleavage to lick off the sticky liquid.

"Waste not, want not," he said, attempting to motorboat her.

"That's the nearest you've been to a pair of those since your Mother weaned you," said Tim, with what sounds suspiciously like a hint of jealousy. I'm not sure if Maggie has picked up on it too but she pushes Lance away, laughing, then puts her hand out to grab mine and pull me toward the bathroom.

The ladies bathroom muffles the sound of the music to a low heartbeat like thump. They are as OTT as the rest of the club, themed like woods, the doors to the cubicles like fairy doors leading into a mountainside. I pee quickly, wondering for a moment what kind of things people got up to in these serene little cubicles, completely cut off from the world outside by their huge wooden doors. While washing my hands I note another woman coming out of a cubicle. Women are in the minority in this club so I have already noticed her on the dancefloor. She is tall and pretty, a feminine kind of pretty in a nineteen fifties dress and matching hair, her eyebrows dark slashes on her pale face, the second most prominent feature after her red painted lips. Her left arm is tattooed from shoulder to wrist, a dizzying swirl of pin-up girls and flowers.

"Hey," she said, smiling, as she pumped soap into her hands, "I've not seen you here before."

"I've not been before," I replied.

"Is the hot redhead your girlfriend?"

"Oh, no," I say, quickly. Internally I curse myself. What if I sound like some sort of prude or homophobe? "We're just friends." She smiles at me as she rinses her hands in the water, shakes the drips off then pulls several paper towels out of the dispenser to dry them. "I'm not..."

"Not gay?" she smiles, apparently enjoying my discomfort.

"No."

"Are you sure?" She raised one exquisite eyebrow.

"One hundred percent."

"Honey," she said, dropping the towels into the bin and taking a shiny lipstick out of her bag, "nobody is one hundred percent anything." I just can't tear my eyes away as she pulls the top from the lipstick and applies a slash of the matt red to her already perfect pout. She doesn't blot her lips and I still can't look away as she puts the lipstick back into her bag and turns to face me. "We've all got masculine and feminine in us to different degrees." I hold my breath as she leans forward, enveloping me in a heady sweet scent mixed with the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. "The sooner you embrace that the less confusing life is." She kisses me on the cheek before straightening up and leaving the bathroom.

"Leah?" I'm not sure how much Maggie has seen but she is standing looking at me, framed by another one of the fairy doors. "Have you made friends?" Her eyes are full of mischief.

"It would appear so," I reply. I turn to the mirror and note that there is a perfect red lip mark on my cheek. I scrub it off with a paper towel as Maggie washes her hands beside me.

Suddenly my senses are overwhelmed by the pack. The rest of them have changed, I can feel it, they are all together in wolf form and getting ready to run. The psychic link is strongest in wolf form and even in human form I can feel it, the pull, the pack mind, the desire to join them so deeply entrenched that I could literally rip off my clothes and gallop off into the night. I grip the edge of the sink, aware that the alcohol has dulled my brain function slightly. Breathing deeply I close my eyes, making a concerted effort to pull the soupy mess of my internal thoughts into a bubble, one that would be robust enough to keep me in the here and now whilst the boys were running. It takes a moment but finally I feel my focus returning from where it had been dragged many miles away back to the present. I open my eyes and Maggie is looking at me with concern.

"Leah, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I reply, managing a shaky smile. "I've just had a lot to drink."

"Me too," said Maggie, looking relieved at my response, "do you fancy going home?"

"Sounds great," I reply and I know that I sound grateful. I'm not sure that I could act completely normally in the club with the pull of the pack. Maggie walks out of the bathroom first and I follow her back into the loud music and toward the door.


	4. Chapter 4

Back at Maggie's apartment I haul myself onto a high bar stool in her kitchen as she puts a pot of coffee on. It's late but we're both still hyped from the evening's activities. She jabbers away mindlessly as she scoops coffee beans into the filter, fills the pot and looks out a couple of mugs. Now that I am away from the hustle and bustle of the club the pull of the pack is stronger than ever. I feel my vision drop out of focus, the present swimming around me like a kaleidoscope. Yet again, I try to breathe through it, to maintain the psychic defences that are keeping my thin grasp on normality in place for the time being.

"Leah, are you really okay?" It's Maggie and she is right in front of me, making me jump a little as I didn't notice her getting that close.

"Fine," I lie, bringing myself back to the present and focusing on her muddy green eyes.

"I don't know," she says, a flash of doubt visible across her face, "there's something different about you tonight."

"Different?"

"Different." She puts her still cold hand on my chin, turning my face side to side, so close that she is almost standing between my legs. "I don't know," she drops her hand from my chin and shrugs her shoulders, "it's hard to put a finger on. You're more reckless, it's like that natural reserve that makes you weird about dancing and stuff has just fallen away." She looks at me again, this time searching deep within my eyes, trying to find an answer to her question. "Dangerous, almost."

"Dangerous?" I query. Sam warned me about this, that there were humans that were more sensitive than others to our form, that they may be able to tell that there was something not quite right about us although most of them couldn't say why. Maggie is my best friend, I desperately want to tell her about me, about what I am. I don't want to keep secrets from her...

My inner dilemma is swept aside by the surprise of her lips touching mine. It is a chaste kiss, soft and feminine. She pulls away, eyes opening softly and blinking slowly as if awakening from dream.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her fingers going to her lips unconsciously, touching them as if to confirm that they are tingling as much as mine are. "I guess that some of that recklessness has rubbed off on me." She looks distraught, her eyes wide, clearly terrified that she has upset me. My stomach flips and the urge to soothe her is strong. I grab her hand, marvelling briefly at how cold it feels in my warm one, and interlace my fingers with hers.

"I'm not sorry," I say, deliberately louder than her whisper. "I do feel reckless. I feel reckless and dangerous and happy and I don't want tonight to end." I take her other hand in mine and she leans in towards me. I tune into my inner wolf and breathe. She smells of a musky perfume applied hours before, the one that I now associate with her because she wears it every day. She smells of the fruity cocktail that spilled during the limbo dancing. She smells faintly of cigarette smoke and sweat, the lingering odours of the packed nightclub. Underneath it all there is another scent, faint but tangible, the smell of arousal.

Her lips touch mine and although soft this time it is anything but chaste. The soft planes of our lips press together, exploring shape and texture. She unlaces one hand from mine and places it on my cheek, holding me steady as the kiss deepens, an exploratory tongue entering my mouth. My free hand goes to her waist, marvelling at the soft feel of her midriff between the slinky vest. My other hand stays firmly intertwined in hers and we are gripping each other so tightly now that we may actually be holding each other up. She pulls away again and this time I see a strange look in her eyes, the look of a predator. I recognise that look, because it's something that I understand. It touches something primal within me and I am so close to changing there and then. But a different part of my body takes over, still primal but more human. As our eyes meet there is suddenly a moment of understanding, of pure elation, a recognition of primal lust and exactly what has to be done to slake it.

In a moment she has pulled my top over my head, leaving me sitting in her kitchen in only jeans and a bra. The bra is practical, padded and push up and her hands are immediately behind me, unclipping it and tossing it to the side before she has me in her hands, squeezing and kneading then licking and nibbling, eventually sucking my nipples with the deep hard knowledge that only a woman who has nipples of her own understands is bearable. She raises her head, her red curly hair wild due to my hands winding in it. Neither of us can wait and in a moment she has pulled me to my feet, dragging the stretchy jeans along with my girlish cotton panties to the ground.

"Your legs are so long," she murmured as I stepped out of the jeans and her hands travelled all the way from my leg to my hips. She is surprisingly forceful as she pushes me back onto the stool, smiling wickedly as she spreads my legs. "You're so hot!" I can tell from her voice that she means it and after everything that has happened with Sam, the confusion of our feelings for each other and his imprinting on Emily the naked honesty of her remark is refreshing, reinforced by the lust in her eyes and the greedy way that she is kissing me again. She is standing between my spread legs and her jeans are rubbing deliberately and most insistently against my naked pussy. I moan into her mouth, writhing involuntarily against the friction. Encouraged, she dips an exploratory hand between my legs. I'm wet, almost embarrassingly so, yet the look on her face as she discovers this and runs her forefinger up my slit to my prominent clitoris is priceless. It is adoration, bliss and desire plastered across the curve of her lips and her wide muddy green eyes. Those eyes fix mine with a keen gaze, not letting me look away as a slim finger, then two, ease into my hot centre. Her thumb slides up to my clitoris, rubbing insistently, aware from my suddenly heavy breathing and the way that I am biting my bottom lip that I am perilously close.

It takes mere moments of her working her fingers and thumb between my legs, her eyes never leaving mine, for a massive orgasm to build. I mean, I masturbate, who doesn't? But the feeling I get is nothing like this, like a huge rush building behind a dam, the pressure so much that I'm almost scared as to what happens when it bursts. My breathing becomes slightly irregular, tiny beads of sweat forming on my forehead when it happens. The pack. I realise that my mental bubble is so fragile that it has almost burst and it terrifies me. I come back to myself for a moment, trying to push her hand away. But she won't let me do it. She looks into my eyes and spreads my legs all over with her denim clad thigh, forcing her hand back to the same exquisite yet excruciating position. I'm strong right? I'm superhuman strong but I let her overpower me, I let her dancing fingers back into position and I let the mental bubble fizzle and pop as the largest orgasm of my life rides through my body like an electric shock, tensing and releasing every muscle with an intensity that shocks me. I put my head back and howl. But I'm still human so it's a moan, or a strangled scream. I've never been so close to the pack in human form but I can feel them pull up, stopped in their tracks by my anguish and pleasure. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise as I hear them, miles away but howling, howling against the moon with pleasure, calling to me with their separate but mingling voices.


	5. Chapter 5

As the orgasm abates I close my eyes, trying to centre myself again and overcome the desire to change. My breath is still coming in strangled gasps and Maggie is leaning back against the breakfast bar, eyes slightly glazed, lips parted. When I look at her my desire multiplies. It's not just me and how I feel about her, there's a weight behind me, a solid, indecribable weight made up of the mingled desire of the rest of the pack. I should try to shut them out but I can't. I all but growl as I rise from the stool to my feet and kiss her, an expression of pent up aggression and lust. She is not surprised by my aggression, indeed she meets it in kind, kissing me roughly, sucking my neck with a ferocity that I know will leave a mark, groaning out loud and fisting handfuls of my hair as I bite hard on her earlobe.

They are with me through the whole thing, silent as I strip of her clothes, making guttural noises deep inside as I lick and suck the frosted pink nipples topping her ice cream pale freckled breasts, growling as I inhale the scent of her pussy for the first time, burying my face into her as deep as I can and rubbing her scent all over my face like an animal. Her little whimpers are intoxicating, the sound of prey, and there is nothing that can stop me as I lick and suck her to a wild, thrashing orgasm, her simpering changing to a wild howl that would rival that of the pack as she cums. They howl too and it is almost too much, the cacophony of sounds, the pungent gush of her orgasm on my face, the feel of her soft body as it clenches and releases, the look in her eyes as she pulls me to her, kissing my sloppy face before flopping back on the bed, exhausted, curling her arm around my shoulder as she drifts off.

* * *

Some time later I hear the tell-tale deep breathing and see the rapid movement of her eyeballs under her eyelids that confirm that she is in a deep sleep. I, on the other hand, despite my earlier tiredness am now wide awake. I slink out of bed, stopping for a moment to tuck her in under the floral duvet. I wrap myself in her dressing gown, breathing in the familiar musky scent from the soft, worn material and pad out of the apartment and into the lobby. It is almost 4AM and there is not a soul awake in the building. I glance around to check that there is no CCTV then slip out of the dressing gown, folding it carefully and leaving it on the table near the door. I take the key with me as I walk outdoors, naked andtuck it into a plant pot, hoping that nobody notices it nestling in the dark soil underneath the dead plant.

In a moment I have changed and I am running, the feel of the pavement beneath me quickly giving way to the crispy frosty grass of the fields. The moon is full and the night is clear, the smells and sounds crystallised like little shards of dew. The one sound that is carrying is the pack. I can hear them. I can hear Jacob, his alpha roar louder and deeper than the rest as they scream into the night for the sheer pleasure of it. I pause in my easy lope for a moment, pointing my muzzle to the bright orb in the sky to tell them that I am coming. I am coming!

As I join them my own mind melts away, reabsorbed into the pack. Jacob, the big russet wolf, greets me with a friendly nip, the others milling around. Then we are off, running, each separate but merged as one, a stream of fur and sinew poring over hills and streams and moss. Even the smell of prey is not a distraction as we race and run and leap just for the hell of it and for the love of the company of the pack.

* * *

"Morning sleepyhead." Maggie mumbles something unintelligibe in response from a tangled web of red hair. When I got back I made coffee, picking up where she had left up last night.

"Thanks," she replied gratefully, propping herself up against the headboard and taking the mug from me, taking a sip and cradling it between two hands. "Last night..." The beginning of her sentence scares me, I really didn't want to be having this conversation quite so soon.

"I'm not..." she begins again, a strange echo of my own conversation last night.

"Don't worry," I tell her, "I don't think I am either but as far as I'm concerned nobody's one hundred percent anything." She smiles, seemingly pleased that I have picked up on what she is trying to tell me.

"I've got to go," I tell her, clicking on my mobile phone to make a show of checking the time, "secret Santa on the reservation soon."

She leans forward and kisses me on the lips, chaste again but caring.

"Usual run on Tuesday night?"

"Yes," I reply, "see you after work."

* * *

When I walk into Sam and Emily's house a hush falls over the room. I groan inwardly, this is exactly what I didn't want to happen. I'm not sure what to say. I'm not sure how to start addressing what happened last night. What happened last night that they shared with me.

"So," said Embry and we all turn to face him, surprised that he is the first to speak, "does that mean that I've lost my V card now?" Sam throws a cushion at him and we all laugh. Somehow Embry has broken the ice, brought us all together with laughter. The guys are buzzing, excited by what they have shared in yet reverent too, careful of my feelings, amazed at and fascinated by the capacity of the female form for pleasure.

"So," said Jacob finally, bringing the last of the laughter down to silence. "Who did you have for Secret Santa?"

"You," I confessed, the badly wrapped package gripped tight in my hand. He rises to his feet, taking the gift from me and planting a rough, father-like kiss on the top of my head before ripping the paper off to reveal the superhero socks inside.

"Well done for keeping it a secret," said Sam, clearly proud that he has managed to teach me something.

"Fuck socks," said Jacob, flinging them into the wastepaper basket, "what you shared with me last night was the best present I," he stopped and corrected himself, "no, the best present that the pack could ever have wished for."

"Thanks Jacob." The words are quiet, my throat suddenly tight with unshed tears.

"No, thank you," he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. The rest of the guys agreed, a comforting sound of murmured agreements and thank yous that soothed me more thoroughly than a childhood lullaby. Then they were all on their feet, the desire to touch strong and ending with me wedged into the centre of a hot group bear hug. The pack was in harmony for once and I couldn't be happier. Today I feel like a wolf shaped peg dropped into a wolf shaped hole.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

I hope you all enjoyed my little piece about Leah, who is an absolute pleasure to write, being by far the most interesting person in the pack. You'll notice that I have changed Seth to a little sister, Beth. Trust me when I say that I've got some ides brewing to take this new element forward.

If you enjoyed this please check out _Watching Her Fall_ my ongoing love triangle between Bella, Edward and Jacob.

Thanks to all the people who have read, reviewed and made this a favourite.

 **LadyLetters**


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